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Civil rights icon, Rep. John Lewis, wrote in 2018, "Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society." As legal educators, we aim to equip our students—the next generation of lawyers—to do their part to wield the powerful instrument of the law to advance the aims of justice, fairness and equity. We teach that being effective and ethical attorneys requires a commitment to lifetime learning and growth.

It is in that spirit that we commend the New Jersey Supreme Court on its plan to implement a diversity, inclusion and anti-bias Continuing Legal Education (CLE) requirement for judges and attorneys. This requirement will advance the growth and learning that is a hallmark of our profession, and it will help to engage us all in the essential work of eliminating racial injustice in the legal system and beyond.

The court announced its vision last week as part of its Action Plan for Equal Justice, a series of concrete steps to be implemented over the next year aimed at eliminating "disparities within the court system" and removing "institutional obstacles to justice." We applaud the court for turning its commitment into action following its powerful June 5th statement on racial injustice in the legal system, and we believe the continuing legal education component of the Action Plan represents a particularly important step toward this goal.

The process of becoming an effective, integrity-led attorney is just that—a process. No lawyer is fully formed upon entering the bar; we all continue to grow and learn from experience, self-reflection, and education. More fundamentally, as a profession we must reckon with the nation's history of racial oppression and the ongoing institutional and private racism that shapes American life today. This reality undermines our legal system's promise of equal justice and requires our collective commitment to ongoing education and change.

The New Jersey State Bar Association in a letter to the court proposing the CLE requirement on July 10th noted that although there are "no easy solutions" to eliminating racial disparities in the justice system, "any solution must include the element of education." As educators, we wholeheartedly agree. The court's planned CLE requirement ensures that all lawyers will be a part of this essential process of learning and reflection. Our collective education, however, need not stop there.

As teachers, we learn from our students. Following the brutal killing of George Floyd, we joined with our students in a vigil to honor his life, grieve his family's loss, and reflect on the institutional racism that led to his killing by the police and to the murder of so many other Black Americans. Many students shared powerful insights about the pain of racism in their lives and offered visions for a more just future. Our students emphasized that education about racism and honest self-reflection are essential first steps in acting to eliminate racial injustice. Their call to action motivates us.

We are working to ensure that our classes better address the role of systemic racism in the law and include the perspectives of those historically marginalized. We continue to host workshops that challenge faculty and administrators to think about our role in confronting bias in our classrooms and community. We seek to equip ourselves with tools for addressing racism and advancing anti-racist policies. Some of us have been participating virtually this summer, along with our students, in a discussion series on social justice issues, which has spurred valuable reflection about structural injustice and the lived experience of racism in lawyers' and clients' lives. Others of us have been engaged in a racial justice reading group. And we have invited all of our incoming first-year students this summer to read Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law, which will serve as a focal point of our 1L orientation program this August. In these and other ways, we seek to generate within our own community a variety of avenues through which we and our students can inquire into, learn about, and discuss with one another issues related to systemic racism and the law. We endeavor to apply this ongoing learning to our personal and professional lives, and we hope the process will encourage our students to do the same.

We recognize that education alone will not eliminate racial bias or secure equal justice under the law. Rather, we describe these efforts to demonstrate the firmness of our belief that ongoing learning is a lifelong commitment and education is an essential part of dismantling racial injustice. We are grateful for the New Jersey Supreme Court's leadership on these issues to ensure that growth and learning about diversity, inclusion, and the work of confronting bias in the profession continues throughout each New Jersey lawyer's career. We look forward to implementation of the CLE requirement addressing these important topics.

 

The following members of the Seton Hall Law School faculty are signatories to this commentary:

Professor Michael P. Ambrosio

Professor Gaia Bernstein

Professor Ilya Beylin

Professor Kristen E. Boon

Professor Lori Outzs Borgen

Professor Angela C. Carmella

Professor Michael Coenen

Professor Carl H. Coleman

Professor Jenny-Brooke Condon

Professor John Kip Cornwell

Professor Mark P. Denbeaux

Professor Jacob T. Elberg

Professor Linda E. Fisher

Professor Karla Y. Foy

Professor Paula A. Franzese

Professor Timothy P. Glynn

Professor Jonathan Hafetz

Professor Thomas Healy

Professor John V. Jacobi

Professor Tracy A. Kaye

Professor Kevin B. Kelly

Professor Marina Lao

Professor Margaret K. Lewis

Professor Stephen J. Lubben

Professor Solangel Maldonado

Professor Andrea McDowell

Professor Denis F. McLaughlin

Professor Ndjuoh MehChu

Professor Jessica Miles

Professor Katherine L. Moore

Professor Brian M. Murray

Professor Lori A. Nessel

Professor Amy F. Newcombe

Professor Jennifer D. Oliva

Professor David W. Opderbeck

Professor Heather E. Payne

Professor Melanie J. Perez-Vellios

Professor Jacqueline C. Pirone

Professor Jamie Pukl-Werbel

Professor Kathryn E. Quaglia

Professor Tara Adams Ragone

Professor Jon Romberg

Professor Deborah E. Schander

Professor Brian Sheppard

Professor Allison Sigmund

Professor Claudette L. St. Romain

Professor Charles A. Sullivan

Professor Susannah D. Volpe

Professor Richard Winchester